Transcriber: vesta #5711
ALI: Hello everyone! Welcome to a new Pusher post. This doesn’t really have like a title. I’ve been calling it Friends at the Table Book Club, but it’s all movies? We’re not reading any books so that’s not true, but yeah hi! [giggles]
KEITH: Watching a movie is sort of reading a book with your eyes and ears.
ALI: Sure- yeah, it is exactly like that. So much like we did last year, I put a list of movies/TV shows together, and assigned it to my dear friends to watch so we can talk about it and sort of relate back to like how it you know, relates to how we wanna play games or quote unquote like “write things”. This is another Bluff City focused group of things? Also because this is probably going to be the first Pusher post that you’re seeing in a little bit [chuckles], I’ll just speak to our plans for this tier right now. Basically- oh my god, before the Kingdom game, we recorded a bunch of,
JACK: Four and a half years ago.
ALI: Just a lifetime ago, we recorded a bunch of individual, one cast member and Austin, talking about their inspiration for their PARTIZAN characters. And then we played the Kingdom game, and we’re going to release those, and then we’re like, wait a minute, instead of pairing this up by character, we should just release it on our own. Cause like forty minutes of a thing is like a pretty healthy post, and then I don’t understand how it immediately- we were like, oh but it’s after Kingdom, so we should double the size of all of these and record them again?
KEITH: It was so long ago that I don’t know what you’re talking about. [ALI chuckles] I literally don’t know what you’re even talking about. [JACK and DRE laugh]
ALI: You definitely sat down with Austin and talked about like your inspiration for Leap and things like that.
KEITH: Yeeeah.
DRE: Ohhh! Okay, yes.
KEITH: I kind of remember that.
ALI: Yeah! Yeah, and those are edited and they’re ready to go, and will be accompanied by postcard art and are gonna come after these movie episodes-
KEITH: Oh that stuff’s not out yet?
ALI: It sure isn’t! [laughs] For a billion reasons. But yeah, so enjoy that to come. But for today, I’m here with my treasured coworkers to talk about our first movie, which is Tampopo! Do you guys want to introduce yourselves? I don’t know how to [chuckles] I am joined here by Keith J Carberry!
KEITH: Hi my name is Keith Carberry. You can find me on Twitter @KeithJCarberry, you can find the Let’s Plays that I do at youtube.com/RunButton.
ALI: Perfect. I am also joined by Andrew Lee Swan.
DRE: Hey, you can find me on Twitter @Swandre3000.
ALI: And, Jack de Quidt.
JACK: Hi! You can find me on Twitter @notquitereal and buy any of the music featured on the show at notquitereal.bandcamp.com.
ALI: I am joined by all the three, the three-word people- I guess there’s Arthur Martinez Tebbel. Okay, so we need to get Art in here. [KEITH laughs] Besides that we’re good [chuckles]. So yeah, so I was the one who sort of assigned things, and Tampopo was one of the things that like, as soon as I watched it I was like, I eventually want to show this to the Friends at the Table cast to talk about Bluff City in relation to it, and now we’re here, and I’m curious at what you guys’ thoughts are!
JACK: When did you first see this?
ALI: Um, I saw this, oh god, if it was before I moved to California, it was like maybe two and a half years ago?
JACK: So it’s been like simmering for a while.
ALI: A little bit [chuckles].
KEITH: Like a nice ramen. [laughs]
JACK: Like a great ramen.
DRE: Ahh!
JACK: Ahh! It’s all going to be food metaphors this episode.
KEITH: I thought this was great. This has been on my- this movie has been on my list since Blockbuster existed.
ALI: Ohh! [chuckles]
KEITH: Yeah I can see- I saw- I was always seeing this movie in Blockbuster. [ALI: Huh.] Just see the cover- you know, you browse a VHS rental store, and you see covers and you’re like, that’s an interesting cover, and then you just ignore it because either you’re a child or that’s not what you’re there for, or whatever? This is a movie that I used to see the cover for, and then I would see it, I don’t know, on some streaming service, I can’t remember, I was gonna say Netflix but I don’t know. And then it was just something that I never watched, so I’m glad that I had to watch it for work.
JACK: I was exactly the same. Like I had been, like years ago, I had heard that like, oh there’s this film called Tampopo, it is a sort of like, it is a weird film about food, and that is very interested in food and I was like, sick, that sounds lovely, I will definitely watch it. And then as is the way of these things [ALI chuckles], like half a decade passed. So when- so Ali came into our chat and basically said, here are some things that we could talk about, and as soon as you said Tampopo I was like, oh! [ALI laughs]
KEITH: That’s the food one.
JACK: And now I can be paid for this!
ALI: [laughs] Yeah, it’s great. I was- oh Dre, do you wanna-?
JACK: Such a great movie.
ALI: Do you have? Did you have a yearning-
DRE: I- listen. I feel less artistic because I had not heard of this movie before. But, it’s freaking wonderful, so I was glad I got to watch it.
ALI: Perfect. Yeah, I also had not heard of it before I watched it. It was like a situation where a friend of mine was like, hey, come over for this movie night, back when you could do that. And I was like damn, this rules! And then I was like in this room with like eight other queer people, and we ended up just talking about like, realizing you were queer at a later age, so [JACK: Oh wow!] if you all wanted to talk about that instead today, we could do that! [laughs]
JACK: What a great like, double-bill with this movie.
DRE: Yeah! Seriously. [laughs]
ALI: It ruled. But yeah, so I, yeah. I, when I first saw this movie I definitely walked away from it being like, that was so absurd, but it was also like, the sort of feeling that I wanted to get out of like, the Actual Plays that we do? In terms of like having and making something that’s like not afraid to pull punches, but also has like a lot of affection for its characters? Which I feel like this movie has.
DRE: Mmm.
JACK: Yeah.
DRE: Yeah, a hundred percent.
KEITH: The thing that struck me about the movie and how it feels like doing a Let’s Play in a way, [ALI giggles] is like the movie [JACK: Yeah.] is so interested in the food, that it’s exploding out of the narrative, the linear narrative, to keep talking about food in different ways.
JACK: [laughs] Yes!
KEITH: Like in the exact way that a tangent on a podcast would happen? [ALI laughs]
JACK: Everybody in this movie wants nothing more than to interact with food.
ALI: Mhm.
JACK: Like, in any situation.
KEITH: Oh, any situation.
JACK: If someone is dying, [ALI laughs] all they want to do is- [wheezes] if, if there is- if the fucky couple is on screen, [DRE laughs] they want to talk about food. If the old woman who wants nothing more than to touch peaches is on screen, [ALI giggles] boy she’s gonna touch those peaches!
KEITH: Everyone knows a food pincher!
DRE: God!
JACK: I love the old woman who wants to touch peaches- The food pincher? Listen, you got to be real careful because the food pincher’s about. She’s gonna pinch- well first she’s gonna pinch the peach.
ALI: Yeah.
JACK: Then she’s gonna pinch the camembert. Then she’s gonna pinch some kind of bread but it’s obscured by a window [ALI chuckles] like in a horror movie when the monster’s kill is hidden by something.
ALI: She’s very tricky! She has to be very careful.
JACK: She’s so sneaky!
DRE: I don’t know if we can call what she does pinching either. [ALI laughs] Cause that was like-
JACK: Food- the food- [laughs]
DRE: She was giving a deep tissue massage to [ALI: To that peach, yeah.] various food items [laugh]
ALI: Yeah yeah yeah. You know, food’s important. And you wanna interact with it [laughs], and you wanna- [JACK: In every way. In every way!]
KEITH: You wanna remind people what a peach looks like? [ALI chuckles]
DRE: Yeah! Listen, sometimes you’re horny and wanna use food to like put on your partner, and sometimes you’re horny and you just wanna squeeze that food. [ALI: Mhm.] In a grocery store.
KEITH: Yeah. And you don’t have emojis, so you can’t just go like, peach emoji.
DRE: Yeah.
JACK: Yeah. You can’t go peach emoji, but what you can do as you’re dying, is tell like, a truly upsetting story about pigs who love to eat yams.
DRE: Uhhuh.
ALI: [exhales] Yeah. [laughs]
KEITH: Was that upsetting for you- that story upsetting?
JACK: It was upsetting to- so here’s what was upsetting. The thing that was upsetting was that, that this was a moment that was clearly so important to him that as he was snatching [KEITH: Yeah.] at the last moments of his life, he thought I want to eat these yam pigs with you. [KEITH: Right.] And that has been taken away from me.
KEITH: Here is the- the moment I’m most missing from dying now. Okay.
JACK: Yeah, and the pigs.
KEITH: I thought you were talking about the idea of the boar was upsetting, but it was the situation-
JACK: Now I think that sounds delicious [chuckles].
KEITH: Yeah, I did sound really good I thought [laugh]. [ALI chuckles]
JACK: What was the- okay. Right, so. We should probably introduce this movie, but before that, I got to ask, what was everybody’s favourite food in this movie?
ALI: Ohhh.
KEITH: Favourite food in terms of what we most would’ve like to have in front of us to eat? Or favourite as in favourite enjoyable as a piece of the movie.
JACK: I think to eat, but also both.
KEITH: Okay.
DRE: Hmmm.
JACK: I will start by saying the various broths looked amazing. [ALI chuckles]
DRE: Yeah, yes. Yeah.
JACK: All the various broths, you know when you’re putting in the bones in, and you’re putting like scallions and everything in. Everytime someone in that movie was making or drinking broth, I wanted broth.
KEITH: Yeah I stopped an hour into the movie to go make ramen and then finished the movie. [ALI and DRE chuckle]
JACK: [chuckling] Paved the way!
ALI: The perfect experience. The like- and it’s such a simple thing, but the like weirdness of the scene and also just the like, joy of that kid eating the ice cream cone disgustingly? [laughs]
JACK: Ohhh, the baby!
DRE: Uh huh, yeah, uh huh.
KEITH: [laughs] This is the natural foods kid?
ALI: [laughing] Yes!
KEITH: Yeah, with the carrot, [JACK: Around his neck!] the quarter eaten carrot around his neck? [ALI and DRE laugh] I was like, I saw- I saw that kid for a second and was like, is that a carrot? And then yeah, it was a carrot, as a necklace.
DRE: Yeah. It’s all he’s allowed to eat. Is that carrot.
JACK: He has this amazing sort of like- oh it’s so good. He has like, he’s wearing a piece of cardboard around his neck, which doesn’t just have a message written by, I guess that kid’s mother on it, it also has illustrations.
ALI: Yeeeeah.
JACK: There’s like a cake with a cross through it. [DRE laughing] Like do not feed this child!
ALI: Ohh!
KEITH: As a reminder of what isn’t natural.
ALI: [laughs] Wait, I have a real answer to what- oh okay, sorry I thought I’d asked a question- I have a real answer to what I wanna eat the most in that movie. And it was the- when the guy’s at the table, and he has that meal of like, pork that’s separate from like dumpling wrappers? And then you put them together, and then eat them?
KEITH: Yeah.
DRE: Oh god!
JACK: Yes!
DRE: That looks so good!
ALI: Shit! [laughs]
DRE: I think my answer was the like collection of various like steamed foods that they guy on the train was eating? And apparently that food was so good that even though his teeth were literally like dying inside of his mouth, he couldn’t help but try to eat that stuff.
ALI: Yeeeah.
KEITH: I don’t wanna undersell the very, very beginning of the movie, the gangster in the white suit who has [JACK: In the cinema?] the duck spread [ALI: Ohhh, yeah.] in the cinema? There’s like very delicious looking duck in front of them. That’s a way- that’s a way to watch a movie.
JACK: Oh god.
KEITH: Some totally unexpected breaking of the fourth wall. [ALI chuckles]
DRE: Oh yeah.
JACK: He just breaks the fourth wall- yeah.
ALI: Just right at the start too. Just-
DRE: Yeah, that movie sets a tone right away.
ALI: Yeah, welcome to the film.
JACK: It breaks the fourth wall in such a gentle way, I, I- god, if Deadpool broke the fourth wall in this way- which is that he just looks up at the camera and says, oh, you’re at the movies too? [ALI giggles] Which is like, so sweet! [KEITH chuckles] It’s cause I was just watching and I was like, yes I am at the movies too! You and me, we’re at the movies together! Boy I hope you don’t die and have an upsetting story about yams. [KEITH and DRE chuckle]
ALI: Yeah.
DRE: Anyway I gotta go assault this guy over some shit.
JACK: Yeah.
KEITH: The chips though, that reminds me of another thing that I noticed in the movie was, how extremely deliberately and close all the mic-ing of pretty much everything was.
JACK: Oh god, everything.
KEITH: Ninety percent it was food, but it was also people walking, like I remember-
JACK: Putting things down.
KEITH: There is this scene, the extremely funny scene of the like etiquette class where they're learning to eat spaghetti, and they’re like- she’s like quiet, and there’s the American who’s eating extremely loudly and she’s insisting that they do it quietly. And then just gives up and they’re all slurping extremely loudly?
JACK: Yes! [ALI giggles]
KEITH: And then a waiter walks past and the sound of his feet on the marble floor, it sounded like he had tap shoes on. [ALI laughs]
DRE: Hey did this movie invent mukbang? [KEITH laughs]
ALI: Oh maybe.
DRE: Is that what we just discovered?
ALI: Yeah maybe. Ohh… okay, while we have a lull here, we’re talking about sorta the start of the movie, let me just give the high-level, this is what this is about very shortly, and then we can go into scenes-
JACK: The year is 1985.
ALI: [laughs] So the basic synopsis I suppose of this film, is that there is a woman who is a widow who runs a ramen shop who has sort of subpar ramen. And then on a fated night, when a truck driver in a rainy storm stops to go get a bowl, helps her son, who’s getting beat up by the neighbourhood kids, has her ramen, helps her- she’s like being harassed by one of her regulars, and he’s like “fuck off, you suck”. Stays the night, and then the next morning she’s like, “well what do you think of my-”
KEITH: Stays the night because he got the shit beat out of him.
ALI: Oh yes, that’s true! Oh my god that’s right!
KEITH: Yeah.
DRE: He got jumped by five guys, got the shit kicked out of him.
ALI: That’s riiiight.
JACK: In an extremely funny fight, it’s-
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: I don’t want to make too big a tangent, but the fight is so good because he’s setting himself up as this big tough guy, and then you just have this close camera on the woman and her son as the fight begins and it is just instantly screaming. [ALI laughs] It just begins screaming.
KEITH: Well you see- you don’t see any of the fight, they just see- you just see their reaction to the fight, and it’s like a 30 second reaction shot of Tampopo’s face as she’s like, watching this fight. You see two of the guys jumped him get thrown [ALI giggles] out of the fight and into frame.
DRE: Yeah, so it starts strong. Starts strong.
KEITH: And you’re like, is this guy gonna beat these five other guys? And then no, he wakes up on a table after having beaten- gotten beaten to unconsciousness, waking up the next morning.
JACK: Anyway sorry, back to the synopsis. I just- I love a good fight which is just people screaming, so.
ALI: Oh, it’s so good. Yeah, just bodies getting tossed around off camera is a great way to show a fight. But yes, so he wakes up in the morning, she makes him a good breakfast, and is like what did you honestly think of my soup? And he was like, it was just okay. It didn’t have spirit, I think is the exact thing that he tells her?
KEITH: It had no pizzazz?
ALI: [laughs] I don’t think he said pizzazz!
KEITH: I’m pretty sure that at some point someone said “no pizzazz”, yeah.
JACK: I think he might’ve said pizzazz, Ali!
ALI: Ohhhh, sure.
KEITH: Oh, another really great food is the homemade miso with the pickled cucumbers in it?
ALI: Oh, yes yes yes. Yeah, yeah.
KEITH: We’re in that scene, that’s why I’m bringing it up.
ALI: Yes. Great at cucumbers, not great at soup. So he’s off on his way, and then as he’s leaving, she runs after him and says, you’ve inspired me to you know, make something great, and I need you to train me to make good soup.
JACK: Be my mentor!
KEITH: Yeah, and she’s like- it’s so cute, the- Tampopo, which is the woman’s name, is just such- she’s such a great character. She’s such a great woman. She’s so easy to root for.
KEITH: She’s also the director’s wife.
ALI: Oh, is she? Huh.
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: Oh, for real?
KEITH: Yup. She was in all of his movies I think. At least while they were married.
JACK: She was great in this movie.
ALI: Yeah. But yeah, just her like, with a handkerchief in her hand, like hanging on the side of this truck, being like, please be my mentor. You can just help me when you drive by, I can’t- [laughs] this agreement they came to.
DRE: Yeah, when they’re on their day off.
ALI: Yeah, and he agrees.
DRE: But yeah I also wondered that, because they’re truckers. Like, I guess they’re gasoline truckers, that’s what it looks like? Like their truck is like some sort of big container truck thing.
ALI: Yeah it’s like a tanker truck, yeah. But yes, and they agree, and then as they go through the process of trying to help her, you also see these visions of the city, which, like Keith mentioned before, the [chuckles] manners class with the slurping ladies, or the woman wandering around in a grocery store squeezing things, or- [chuckles]
DRE: The executives’ lunch?
JACK: Holy shit [laughs]
KEITH: Oh, that was such a good scene.
DRE: God.
KEITH: The embarrassed executives is so good.
DRE: Yeah, just spray-painted red.
ALI: Ohhh my god, that scene is sooo good.
JACK: The dying woman.
ALI: The dying-
KEITH: Oh, I wrote that down.
JACK: It’s so sad.
KEITH: I wrote dinner zombie, [ALI chuckles] yeah, extremely sad.
ALI: The- so to set this scene up, the dinner zombie is [KEITH laughs] a-
JACK: Just one of these vignettes
ALI: Yeah, just another vignette in this movie where what is happening is a man comes home from work, his wife is very sick, his-
KEITH: Runs home, knowing that it’s an emergency.
DRE: Yeah.
ALI: Yeah, his children are crying, his wife is with a doctor who, who says you know, she’s not gonna make it. And in his panic in trying to help her, demands that she makes dinner. And [laughs] she gets up, and she gets-
JACK: And she damn does.
ALI: What did she make? Was it like-?
KEITH: I remember chopping-
DRE: Some kind of like rice dish.
KEITH: She’s chopping- was it- were those leeks, or just enormous scallions? The biggest scallions I’ve ever seen.
DRE: I think they were scallions.
ALI: Yeah.
DRE: But I’m not sure either.
JACK: Like every piece of food in this fucking movie it looked delicious. [ALI laughs]
DRE: Yeah.
KEITH: Yeah, yeah.
ALI: Yeah, she puts together like a quick fried rice, they all sit down to eat it, and then she immediately dies at the table.
JACK: Instantly!
KEITH: Yeah.
ALI: Instantly. And then of course the father says this is the last meal your mom ever cooked, stop crying and eat it. And like, that is such a poignant moment of this film, [DRE: Yeah.] cause it’s like one of those things were it’s like, okay I get it. You’re making a film about how food affects life, and I get it. But like [laughs] it also felt really honest to like, [JACK: Yeah.] just like, that person’s role in that family’s life, and like what she was willing to do.
KEITH: Yeah.
DRE: Yeah. Well but like also, enough like, something pointed out that was poignant to me in that scene was like, right before she died, it seemed like she had a very like, just a super happy look on her face. [ALI gasps] Which to me like kind of, cause at first, that film was very tempted to me as like a- I don’t wanna say the husband was an asshole, [ALI chuckles] but like come on, you're telling your wife to go cook when she’s about to die!
KEITH: Yeah. It helps that he did try to say like, [ALI laughs] try singing first.
DRE: Yeah, like he tries other things.
KEITH: Yeah, he tries some other things before the food. The food was just the one that worked to get her up.
ALI: Yeah, uh huh.
DRE: Yeah, yeah. And so like I had like, I kind of then started reading that scene more as like, food was a motivator for her because it allowed her, like it gave her happiness to see that she was like, providing food in this kind of way to people that she really cares about.
KEITH: You know what the saddest thing about that scene though, is to me?
ALI: What?
KEITH: It presumably took some time to make the rice. [ALI and JACK laugh] But she dies as soon as it’s over, the doctor was just there waiting still.
JACK: The doctor is like, [DRE: Well-] so something that I thought about a lot about that scene, and I’m like, I’m with Ali in that like, I think it spoke very truthfully about- these little vign- so something I think is worth saying about these vignettes, is that with a couple of exceptions, we never return to the characters.
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: They- and sometimes they are on screen for like literally two and a half minutes, and then that is it. But the film is so economical at making this scene, and at saying how food is a lens with which to talk about these people’s lives.
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: But at the same time it always has this weird, absurd, magical realist punch that like, it transitions into the absurd from the realistic so subtly [DRE: Mmm.] that you don’t even notice that it has happened, which is like, [KEITH: Yeah.] I think as Keith said like, she dies and then the camera pulls back just an inch to reveal that the doctor and the nurse are there, and the doctor is holding [KEITH: And it’s genuinely funny.] a stopwatch. [ALI chuckles] It is really funny! Because you just, the- the immediately implication, just as the implication has been like this woman’s role throughout her entire life has been to prepare this food and to sit and eat with her family, like the implication is also that the doctor and nurse have just been sitting there going, “Mmm yeah, so interesting, yes, are those big scallions or are those simply leeks?” [ALI and KEITH laugh]
KEITH: I got a slightly different implication which was that as far they were concerned, she was dead the whole time and they were just waiting [DRE: Yeah, for sure.] grim reaper style for her to fall and write down- [JACK: God.] write the time down.
JACK: That felt- that scene, and I bring this up because if we move off from this scene I wanna make sure that I mention it, the cast is so huge and a lot of the cast are children who are not always acting in necessarily the ways that the director wants them to? [ALI and DRE chuckle]
And there is a moment I love so much in this, which is as the woman is revealed to be dying, the baby who must be like, one, or two, is playing with a toy, and she walks into the frame and holds it directly in front of the face of one of the other older children, he must be like eight or nine, just like look at my toy? [KEITH laughs] And everybody else in the frame is performing and is like really sad, and this one year old baby’s just like, and I have a toy that’s a little acrobat, and you must see- [ALI and KEITH laugh] Like it feels so fitting to this weird movie that like as Keith put it, is just like bursting at the seams constantly with weird characters just to have this baby being like, I’m a fucking baby. I’m in a movie. What do you want me to do? [ALI chuckles]
DRE: Yeah this is my thing, this is what I do here.
KEITH: Another interesting thing is- and this might be because of the time period, I don’t know if this had, it was invented, basically zero percent food porn? Like nothing in this movie would end up on Instagram almost. Like, there’s some shots of broth that look really good, and some bowls of ramen that look really good, but it’s so much more about like watching people enjoy food and watching people be passionate about making food, than it is about looking at plates of beautiful food.
ALI: Yeah.
DRE: Yeah. What is the line they say in her dream when they go to like confront the other ramen shop? It’s normal ramen made the normal way? [ALI laughs] Isn’t that way-
JACK: I love that dream! She just goes and roasts another ramen shop for five full minutes! And by the way your ramen sucks! [laughs] [ALI chuckles]
KEITH: The scene of them listing the different things that’s wrong with that guy’s ramen was really funny. I totally bought that that was a real thing.
ALI: Yeah.
DRE: Me too.
JACK: Until he tries to kill her and she just- oh god, she wakes up from the dream in the best way, no, no you know, no fucking messing around with someone like suddenly opening their eyes in extreme closeup. Instead we just get a mid shot of her screaming, and just [KEITH laughs] standing up.
ALI: Ohhh yeah, so for a little bit of context here, one of- at this point of the movie, one of the like great stresses for Tampopo at this moment is that she can’t get the broth correct. Which is such a huge part of a soup, and she’s been like investigating other ramen shops, and [chuckling] she’s been like trying to buy other people’s recipes [laughs.]
DRE: Sneaking into back rooms to spy!
KEITH: Looking in- looking in- paid thirty thousand yen to look at his back room. Looking through garbage bins to see what they’ve been putting in their broth? [ALI laughs] Oh, one of my favourite scenes was the one about the noodles where she pretends to be a critical customer, [ALI: Oh my god, yes.] and she goes [JACK: Ohh, that’s a great scene.] [DRE: Yes!] and she tricks this guy, she’s trying to learn about noodles and how to make better noodles, and she tricks this guy into telling her the secrets of the ramen noodles by being like “I bet you didn’t let it sit as long as you normally do” and he’s like “nope, overnight”. And is like “I bet you didn’t knead it as much as I usually do.” [JACK: Nope.] And he’s like “nope, I kneaded it three times as always.” [ALI chuckles]
DRE: I bet you didn’t use the right lye water.
KEITH: Yeah. [ALI: She’s so good.] I don’t know what that is, actually! What is lye water?
ALI: It’s like uh, I don’t-
JACK: A kind of acidic water, right?
ALI: Yeah.
JACK: Like uh-
ALI: I’ve only heard of lye being used in the context of like soap outside of this, so?
KEITH: Yeah, I’ve heard that too, yeah.
JACK: It is a- I’ve looked it up, and I could buy it from souschef.co.uk [ALI: Oooh!] for 3 pounds 50 a bottle. [ALI chuckles] You can deliver it from 3.99 which is always a little concerning when the delivery costs more than the item. Food grade lye water is a potent liquid alkaline, a food grade potassium carbonate solution used in homebrewing to reduce acidity and in baking to raise the pH of dough. It is also known as potash, oh! Lye water is also used to make traditional ramen noodles to give them their distinctive yellow colour and springy texture.
DRE: Hm.
JACK: It also helps to prevent them from disintegrating in the broth. Man, Tampopo would’ve loved this website! [ALI and KEITH laugh] Across Asia, lye water is known as kansui (枧水). I was gonna say that when she- so, the scene where she pays thirty thousand yen to try and find a broth recipe features my absolute favourite line in the show, which I think is the most Bluff City line in a movie full of Bluff City lines? Which is initially pledges to spend one million yen to the chef to learn the recipe. And the chef is just about to agree when he has to go and take a phone call. And [KEITH laughs] another customer comes up to her and says, and this is the line.
“Don’t give him one million yen. He bets on speedboats, you’ll never get your money-”
[KEITH and ALI laugh] And I just thought like, he bets on speedboats as a single line can tell us so much about this weird idiot!
KEITH: And then-!
JACK: Don’t give him money, he bets on speedboats! [ALI laughs]
KEITH: And then this is- another thing that speaks to what kind of movie this is, is that she believes him, and then follows through on instead of lending this speedboat better a million yen, instead giving him thirty thousand yen outright to sneak into the backroom, and follows through, and there’s like, there’s like a subtle implication that something might go wrong here? But actually it’s just fine, like it totally works out. It doesn’t really help her make the broth any better, but-
ALI: Um, yeah, I- the movie tends to pull a lot of those punches, where it’s like, it’s seemingly put her in danger? [chuckles] [KEITH: Yeah.] And then takes her out of it, yeah.
JACK: Yeah, like a real bad situation.
KEITH: The camera and the music knew that she maybe was in danger before she did, and by the time she was like “am I maybe in danger?” [ALI chuckles] it was like, no no, we’re just going to the backroom.
DRE: Yeah I agree.
ALI: Yeah it’s tough cause there’s definitely those moments of struggle, and when I was rewatching before I recommended it to you guys, and it’s like you know, she’s in full darkness, alone with this man and she’s like, “um what are you doing, um I don’t know that this is a good idea” I was like oh fuck. But just for them to immediately be like, no there’s this hole in the wall, see how you can watch him put these legs into the pot? Just hang out here, [JACK: God.] it’s all good.
The other moment of that, we’ve mentioned before, is the dream where she is almost getting like beat up by this other ramen maker [chuckles] who she just talked shit about [JACK: Those three guys]. Yeah yeah yeah.
JACK: Who’s, this guy-
KEITH: He was so rude though.
ALI: Yeah.
KEITH: He thought that she was just a customer and they didn’t finish their bowls of ramen, and he’s basically like why the fuck didn’t finish my ramen you assholes? [ALI chuckles] And they were forced after pressed a second time to be like, we didn’t finish because it wasn’t good.
JACK: Cause it’s bad. Again, this is a dream.
DRE: Very much a Yakuza sidequest happening here [chuckles]
ALI: Yes! Yeah!
JACK: There’s so many Yakuza sidequests in this whole fucking movie.
KEITH: But none of them had to do with the guy that was probably a yakuza. [ALI laughs]
JACK: Sure.
DRE: Yeah.
JACK: [chuckling] Yes. There’s a great running gag with this other ramen shop which is that they identify really early on that the best thing this ramen shop does is say welcome? [DRE laughs] Which is these three big guys, and everytime someone comes in they all go like “Welcome!” and our sort of mentor called Goro is like, “oh yeah, their welcome is way better than their ramen.” [ALI giggles] And right at the end of the movie when it has been demonstrated that they have been so thoroughly vanquished by Tampopo, we get this tiny scene of like a single person entering the shop, and all three of them are like [dejectedly] “welcome, hi,” [ALI giggles] “please come and sit down-” it’s so good.
ALI: Yeah.
KEITH: One of them had a glass of water that he was sipping on? And he gave it to the customer who walked in. [DRE and ALI laugh]
DRE: I did not notice that!
KEITH: It was really funny yeah, he had a glass of water in his hand, and when the customer came in he gave it to him. [ALI wheezes, DRE laughs]
DRE: Who is y’alls favourite character in the growing like Tampopo posse of people that help her on her ramen journey?
ALI: Oh boy. I- Goro, which is the main truck driver that we mentioned before, is like- [DRE: Yeah, the cowboy, yeah.] he’s top marks. But I think-
KEITH: He’s the best.
ALI: Yeah, but I think-
KEITH: And his- by the way we didn’t say the name of his friend, Gun. [ALI laughs]
DRE: Gun, yup.
ALI: I- Goro’s obviously at the top, but if you ignore Goro, Gun is the second best. He is amazing. [JACK: Gun’s great.] He is played by a young and hot Ken Watanabe.
JACK: I know!
ALI: [giggling] He’s so hot!
KEITH: Yeah, Ken Watanabe’s really good in this. He is hot.
ALI: And like, there’s- he’s you know, just the sidekick, he’s like around until it comes to the point where they need to give Tampopo like a little bit like a makeover? Because yeah-
DRE: Yeah, they gotta-
ALI: Because they’re like yeah, the ramen’s good now, but like-
KEITH: Yeah, he brings his boys around to give her a makeover.
ALI: [high pitched] It’s so good!
DRE: Mhm.
ALI: He’s just like, this is a young person’s game, and I’m gonna bring all of my hot friends here to dress up this lady.
DRE: Yeah. Goro you don’t know what it looks like to be hot anymore, [ALI squeals] get out of here, we got this.
JACK: One of the men in a film that is like, it’s a brightly coloured film, but it’s fairly conservative at its colour palette? [KEITH: Yeah.] And one of these men shows up in a full Hawaiian shirt for some reason? [ALI laughs]
DRE: Uh huh.
JACK: It’s so good.
KEITH: This is also like, this is not something that I know a lot about, but it’s inexplicably that era of like truck drivers being cool and wise and [ALI and DRE: Mhm.] also they’re cowboys, but also they’re- I don’t know, I don’t know what was going on with truck drivers in the 80s, and I didn’t know- I didn’t know that it reached past- maybe it didn’t reach past the U.S., and this was just like a weird thing that they pulled into this movie from U.S. but, like, I don’t know. I don’t know, I just- I have no connection to thinking truck drivers are cool? [ALI and DRE laugh] It was never a thing for me even when I was a kid. But I just love this weird like time capsule trope of like, movies where the main character is an extremely cool truck driver.
DRE: Yeah.
ALI: It’s great, yeah. Yeah, there’s like- it’s weird because it feels very much like a Japanese film about Japanese food and Japanese culture, but like it’s also like just as the concept, a play on the quote unquote “spaghetti Western”?
DRE: Oh yeah, a hundred percent.
ALI: [chuckling] Where it’s like billed as a “ramen Western”? So there’s definitely like, like they’re pulling some of that.
DRE: You have to get your posse together, your disparate posse together, [ALI giggles] your disparate posse together to take on the bad ramen chefs.
JACK: [overlapping] We gotta talk about the posse. So videogame-style, and I guess also spaghetti Western style, Tampopo needs a team.
ALI: Mhm. [DRE chuckles]
JACK: Team member 1, Goro, the cool truck driver. Team member [DRE: And Gun.] 2, Gun, his compatriot who reads him books in the truck driver cab.
ALI: Ohhh, yeah!
KEITH: About ramen. [ALI laughs]
JACK: About ramen.
DRE: Yeah.
ALI: Yes! And then we meet that guy later.
KEITH: No, that’s a different guy.
JACK: Wait, do we?
ALI: No no no no.
KEITH: That’s a different guy.
DRE: That’s a different guy- I mean they call him sensei, but I think it’s a different guy.
JACK: Wait, which- which guy are you talking about?
ALI: I’m like ninety percent sure- so, one of the opening scenes is Gun is reading the book but we see the restaurant within the book, and there is like this guy sitting down and eating ramen and like teaching somebody the right way to eat it. And then I’m like ninety nine percent sure that that is the like leader of the homeless guys that they meet later.
JACK: Oh, wow!
ALI: Like I think it literally it’s him, I guess I can check IMDB?
JACK: Wait, let me pull up the- yeah. While you look that up, we should introduce the next member which is the leader of a gang of unhoused folks who have a great gig going, which is that they take the food from the high-end- the discarded food from high-end restaurants all around the city, so have like an encyclopedic knowledge of what rich people around the city are eating?
KEITH: They’re true epicures.
DRE: Oh absolutely.
JACK: There’s this great bit where they’re talking about how like there was this one wine from 1980 which was a really bad year, and then they found-
KEITH: Which we all know is a bad year. [ALI chuckles]
JACK: Uh huh.
DRE: Mhm.
JACK: And they found a bottle of it which had been [wheezing] thrown- sorry I just remembered a really good line. And they found a bottle of it which had been thrown out, and they taste it and they like, oh no, actually this rules, this is great. The line I just remembered is up there with the speedboats line, and it’s when Gun- sorry when Goro introduces the sensei and just says like, “he used to be a gynecologist,” [ALI laughs] “and then his wife and nurse like tricked him out of the practice” or something.
DRE: Because he was too busy learning how to cook ramen.
JACK: How to cook ramen! It’s a good line.
DRE: If I remember correctly, I also think like the, like that scene comes not exactly after, but pretty close on the heels of like, that big rich executive lunch? Which was also just kinda furthering to me, the funniness of like, here’s all these rich people who can quote unquote “afford the nice food” but have no fucking idea what any of it is. Where you’ve got people who are, like you said, don’t have a home to live in, and don’t just like- aren’t just like grabbing this because they’re like, oh this is the food we eat, but as like Keith said, are like true epicureans, like they know exactly what all of these things are, and really appreciate them and know how to use them to cook.
ALI: It’s so good. It’s good!
KEITH: One of my favourite scenes was when one of them asks if the kid is hungry.
JACK: This is my favourite scene in the movie! [ALI: Yeah!] I love it.
KEITH: Yeah, this- it’s great.
DRE: It’s so good.
KEITH: What is Tampopo’s son’s name? I can’t remember-
JACK: Tabo?
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: Is it Tabo?
KEITH: I think so. Yeah, Tabo, yeah. Ta- yeah so, asks if he’s hungry, and he’s like “what do you want”, and he’s like “I want a rice omelette”. And so they break into a restaurant [chuckles].
ALI: Stop it.
KEITH: [laughs] They break into a restaurant and he makes him delicious looking rice [JACK: It’s so good!] with a perfectly made- the skill- this is the second time that I noticed that they used a double for preparing the food that was slightly obvious? [ALI chuckles]
JACK: Like that guy was a chef, right?
KEITH: The first- yeah yeah, the first time was when they were- when Goro was trying to teach Tampopo how to properly use the strainer on the ramen? And like they do the montage- the training montage and it ends with her being able to like, really artfully take the ramen out of the water, strain it, and then plate it. Anyway this sidenote, but just that food looks so good, and the scene was so funny, and they do like a Scooby Doo style, [ALI: It’s so good.] like, the guard who sees the open door walks in right as they walk out the other door. Perfectly shot too.
JACK: It’s so warm and joyful and, like, so much of this movie feels generous to the viewer and to the characters in the scenes in terms of like, talking about what makes people interested in food? And like, that scene felt so generous to the viewer. Like every bit of that scene I was like, oh this is great, the sneaking in, the cooking, the preparing, just these loving closeups of like how you make an omelette, or how you prepare rice. And yeah like Keith said, extremely close microphones on everything so you just get this- I think the movie begins with the sound of something frying? Or like, there is like a very distinctive food noise that the movie opens with that I can’t recall. Ali, did you find out if it is the same guy?
ALI: I’m having some trouble finding it.
DRE: Yeah the IMDB page is, is-
ALI: It’s very tricky but it’s also incredible. Let me just read some of the character names on the IMDB page here. [DRE chuckles] Old lady who pinches everything. Con man being conned. Man who runs to see dying wife. Young employee. Gangster in white suit’s henchman. Intended victim of con man. Teacher of [KEITH chuckles] [JACK: -universe!] etiquette. Tall and slender homeless master of ramen eating. Oh maybe this is that guy.
KEITH: Yeah, I thought- that’s what I had thought, I also was looking- but I could find a definitive answer, because I couldn’t find who would be the guy- the actual guy that’s in the group at the end. But it doesn’t sound like master of ramen eat- oh ramen making.
DRE: There’s- there’s two different characters, there’s master of ramen eating [KEITH: Ohhh, okay, yeah.] and master of ramen making. [ALI: Ohhhh.] And I think they are different. I think ramen making is the guy who comes to help her, whereas ramen eating is the person in the beginning in the book scene.
ALI: Okay. Gun is definitely in that scene which is funny because he’s the one like reading the book and being taught how- [laughs]
KEITH: Right, he’s the self-insert-
JACK: Oh yeah! It’s so good. Because he’s clearly imagining himself, he’s reading in the first person, I sat at the table, [ALI: Oh yeah yeah yeah.] so that’s clearly me.
KEITH: One of my favourite lines is they’ve got- they’re you know, he’s trying desperately to learn from this guy- this is like the, the opening scene after the sort of meta-introduction of the gangster being like, you’re also watching a movie? And he’s like trying so desperately to learn like, what order should I eat this? Like what do I do, do I- and he’s saying like, he’s like you gotta make sure you lock eyes with the pork, you apologize to it.
JACK: You apologize to the pork!
KEITH: Here are the four things you do before you can eat the pork. And then he picks the pork up, [DRE: Tapping it.] [ALI giggles] and he taps it, he’s tapping it pretty firmly even, against the side of the thing, and he’s like “what does that mean?” and he’s like “I’m just tapping it so it doesn’t drip on me!” [ALI laughs] [laughs] [JACK chuckles]
ALI: So good.
KEITH: Like nine things in a row have this very intentional thing, and then the first time he asks like “what’s the intention of that” he’s like “no, this means nothing, you just shouldn't drip food on yourself.” [ALI chuckles]
DRE: Idiot! [laughs]
ALI: We should continue going down the list of who she recruits, because they meet the master- yeah.
JACK: We got some real doozies coming up.
KEITH: Oh! First, I don’t- I just wanna point out, I have nothing to say about this except for the song they sing to the master of ramen making.
JACK: The song!! [ALI laughs]
KEITH: It’s so good, before he leaves his little encampment, [JACK: It’s very touching!] they all sing him a song, it was really sweet. [ALI sighs]
JACK: Yeah, they’re all crouched on the- someone says “should we sing a song to send him off?” and they all sit down on these steps. It looks like a musical, like a stage musical. And one guy stands up and he starts singing this solo song that’s basically like, thank you for all you’ve taught us, we’ll remember you forever, we value your lessons. And then every single other person there joins in [ALI chuckles] in like six part harmony! To sing the rest of the song, at night! It’s just- it’s this magical moment, it’s so good. Anyway yeah, who’s up next?
ALI: It’s wonderful- yeah yeah yeah. So they recruit the master of ramen making, and then they run into the rich old man who- hoo-hoo-hoo- [laughing]
DRE: Uh huh. [laughs]
KEITH: Oh, the guy who keeps ordering food that would kill him!
ALI: [laughs] Yes!
JACK: That’s his name on the IMDB page.
DRE: Well I don’t think it’s the food that kills him, it’s just he chokes himself because he gets too excited and doesn’t like chew the food.
ALI: Yeah!
JACK: He’s eating like a mochi-type thing like? Like that kind of stretchy-
KEITH: It was- yeah it was a bean soup with a dumpling in it.
ALI: Yeah.
DRE: Yeah.
ALI: Yeah and it’s unclear whether it’s a health condition thing, or if it’s just he keeps choking on stuff, but he is like, he’s being taken care of of this woman who reminds him of the things that he cannot do [JACK: She’s going to the bank], and keeps going to the bank [chuckling], and then as soon as she walks away, of course he orders all the things he cannot have, chokes, and then is saved by our protagonist. And then, he invites them back to his house or wherever-
DRE: Hold on. You have to describe how he’s saved [ALI and KEITH howl with laughter]. I cannot talk about this scene. [JACK chuckles]
ALI: Dre, would you like to?
KEITH: Jack and I both saw Dre in the chat [JACK: God.] reference this.
JACK: Should we just read? So- so at U.K. time, at 4.33 U.K. time, Dre in our Discord chat said “can’t believe they vacuumed an old man”. [KEITH laughs, ALI snorts]. Because this man, who as Keith so eloquently puts it, truly should be described on IMDB as “man who keeps ordering food that will kill him”. [DRE laughs] Tampopo goes and fetches a vacuum cleaner.
KEITH: First! First they- first Goro and Gun-
DRE: Hold him upside down!
KEITH: Hold him upside down by his legs [ALI and DRE laugh] and basically try to shake the dumpling out of his throat [laughs].
ALI: It’s so good! Yeah, and then, can we- there’s a vacuum nearby.
DRE: Perfectly mouth-sized vacuum that she can shove down his throat [laughs]
ALI: It’s so good- it’s like one of those like, canister ones on wheels with like one of those long like stretchy but plasticky-
KEITH: It looked like a dry-vac than a wet-vac.
ALI: Yeah! Yeah yeah yeah. [DRE: Yes, it did.] And just goes into his mouth, and pop. And of course he is so grateful [giggles]. He invites them back to his estate, and then I guess- a little bit of a content warning here because this is the part of the movie where a turtle’s neck is sliced? I don’t know the like laws about animal abuse or like, what that means if it’s being prepared, but I’ll put a timestamp in the actual description for this episode just so people going to watch this after the fact kind of have a heads up.
KEITH: I was absolutely not expecting to watch a turtle be killed? [ALI chuckles]
DRE: Yeah.
ALI: It’s- yeah.
KEITH: I mean, I had- so when I saw I was like, this sucks that I had to watch a turtle be killed, and then I had to try and be like, all of the food in here was alive until is was killed.
ALI: Right.
DRE: Yup.
KEITH: That it was on-screen was only honest about the way that food is, in a way?
ALI: Right, and I think they’re even like specifically like, oh, you have to prepare it this way before it congeals, and then that’s when it like tastes the best.
DRE: Right, you have to kill it very quickly and like, I guess- I mean I don’t know, I don’t know if it’s really that painless, but yeah. The idea is that you have to do it quickly and efficiently so that its muscles don’t seize up or whatever.
KEITH: Yeah, that’s what they said, yeah. And it was dead very quickly, and I’m sure that person that did it was a- butchers these things professionally and is not an actor acting as like-
DRE: Yeah.
ALI: Yeah, but still a rough bit of this movie that you can very-
JACK: Yeah, I absolutely skipped this sequence. Ali timestamped it. And I mean like, we should probably put the timestamp in the-
KEITH: I missed that, I did not know that you did that.
ALI: Oh yeah, sorry [chuckles]
KEITH: I didn’t know this was in the movie- it’s fine.
ALI: Yeah, I put- yeah.
JACK: Something that I think a lot about- it is such a transparent metaphor that there’s not really much more that we can add to it? But I think it was really- I think it was really deliberately in the way it was like, we have saved this man from dying, and he’s going to reward us by killing a turtle for us? [ALI wheezes]
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: And the fact that these two scenes just run straight back-to-back, like felt so, sooo deliberate.
KEITH: There’s another- I don’t wanna-
JACK: Subtlety is for losers.
KEITH: I don’t wanna read too deeply into it, but the other thing is that like, I believe that in both China and Japan, turtle is specifically like, a tonic food? Like, it is at least symbolizing health and wellness, if not you know, people aren't eating it specifically because it’s a health food, it at least symbolizes those things? That could be something.
ALI: Yeah. But what we get from this scene is [chuckling] you know. They have the turtle, switches to them just sitting on this really nice grass, and this old man casually says, oh I heard that you’re having trouble with your ramen shop. And then just like, you can borrow my driver to- [wheezes].
JACK: Here, take my man!
ALI: Take my man, he’ll help you out. And that is our new recruit.
KEITH: Yeah, he’s the noodle specialist.
ALI: [chuckles] Yes.
JACK: Boy. And this guy- this guy, how helpful is this man?
KEITH: He is- he’s helpful!
ALI: Yeah.
DRE: He’s helpful!
KEITH: Yeah!
ALI: I think he- he ends up, they go-
DRE: He’s the noodle guy, right?
ALI: They end up going together-
JACK: To that place, yeah.
ALI: Yeah, they’re together when she’s doing the “I didn’t like your noodles you must not have done them the right way” scam. And then he’s also waiting with her outside of a different place when they’re waiting in the rain and looking through garbage?
JACK: Oh, so good.
KEITH: Looking through the garbage, yeah.
DRE: Yeah.
KEITH: And I- you know, I don’t own a food shop or anything, but, you know, I like food. I like good food. And I think the number one most important thing that someone can do for me in terms of like, expanding my palate? Is giving me three different versions of something, and being like [JACK: Mmm!] can you tell that this one is the best one of these? And that’s happened every once in a while, you get something like that where you’re like oh, you know, either right next to each other or over the course of weeks, I have three different versions of a good thing with someone who really knows that they’re good. And now I can tell you know, which kind of food is good. So, that- I think that taking someone to several ramen shops and being like, these are the good noodles, these are the bad noodles, is a very useful tool for someone who then is going to make noodles.
ALI: Yeah for sure. And then after him we have our final team member, [JACK: Aww.] which I feel like is sort of the- yeah.
JACK: He’s my favourite.
ALI: The final boss of, you know, togetherness in this movie, because we meet the man from the first scene who was a dick again. And how does that go exactly?
JACK: There is an enormous, horrible fight [ALI chuckles]. Just miserable.
KEITH: Miserable slog of a fight. A simultaneous knockout.
DRE: He shows up and was like “hey, sorry that I was too drunk to stop that fight from becoming a 5 on 1, but let’s fight for real.”
ALI: Yeah.
JACK: It’s such a fucking funny apology because,
DRE: And let’s be fair about it.
JACK: The apology- [wheezes] the apology basically goes “look, I’m really sorry that all my friends beat me up. Now, how would you like it if I beat you up now?” [ALI and KEITH laugh]
KEITH: And the response to that is no response. The response is that within one second of the offer being placed, Goro’s got his fists up and has taken a swing.
JACK: Uh huh.
KEITH: Like not in a dirty fighting kind of way, but just in like an “of course we would fight now” kind of way.
ALI: Yeah, it’s such a wonderful thing because it ends up being like a really vulnerable moment between these two men because like,
JACK: Yeah it’s so good!
ALI: They fight it out you know, evil-footed- [catches herself] evil-footing, even-footing, they both fall together, and then this man, the regular customer like asks you know, very sheepishly like, oh are you in love with her? And then sort of goes back into his backstory with Tampopo which is that he knew her and her late husband when they were in high school I guess?
DRE: Yeah he said he grew up with her.
ALI: And then is like, well I guess I’ve been- [laughs] I don’t remember the segue, and there probably wasn’t one, where he was like just, oh, [JACK: It’s so good.] you guys are doing a good job over there. By the way, I am a- [JACK: Interior decorator!] [laughs] [DRE laughs] I’m a carpenter, and I can help her with the shop. And then Goro is like, yeah that’s a good idea. But make sure she pays you [laugh] which is such a weird like-!
JACK: What we need to underscore this as well is these two men have fought each other to the absolute brink of unconsciousness. [ALI: Yeah, they’re on the floor when they have this conversation.] Every line here is delivered through like, a fat lip, punch-drunk.
KEITH: Swollen eye- [DRE: Nreathing heavily.] swollen shut eye.
JACK: As Goro is saying “make sure she pays you” he is trying to stand up, and instead is sort of crawling horizontally through a field? It’s- there’s a lovely shot as well where when they’re both lying on their backs in the grass, you get this shot of the grass growing around the camera? Like you’re looking up at the sky through some like blades of grass. And like, you don’t really get that shot anywhere else in the movie. There’s not a lot of green in the movie.
KEITH: No, it’s very much the city.
ALI: Yeah.
JACK: Yeah.
DRE: Mhm, yeah.
JACK: Well other than scallions and big leaves.
ALI: [chuckling] Yeah!
JACK: The most important green things in this movie. [KEITH chuckles] So then this guy shows up, they walk into the shop together, and Tampopo has another totally plausible reaction where she goes “ahhhhh!” [ALI laughs]
DRE: “Please don’t fight, please don’t fight!”
JACK: And Goro and this guy who’s called Pisken-
KEITH: I’m changing my name to Pisken by the way.
JACK: They’re both you know covered in blood, and they’re both punch drunk, and Goro basically just says like, “no no no, no! It’s okay, he’s an interior decorator and we’re gonna fix everything in your place!” [ALI, KEITH, DRE laugh] And Tampopo, ever the great hero that she is, is just like yep! That sounds great.
ALI: Yeah.
KEITH: Yeah- I just love the idea- when they walk in and she flips out is just like “please don’t fight”, and they laugh in her face like what she said is ridiculous, [JACK: Like ah, what a fucking joke!] and it’s basically because we already fought! [laughs] [ALI laughs]
DRE: It’s taken care of, it’s fine!
JACK: There is a bit at the end of that scene where he is- actually we see it much later in the movie, where he is kind of like breaking down the inside of the ramen shop, and it’s a fun scene, the film is so good at like showing people doing work with their hands and their bodies? Whether that’s making ramen, or making an omelette in a kitchen that they shouldn’t be or you know, knocking down the inside of a ramen joint? And there is this shot of this man holding a massive mallet, I don’t know if you remember this.
DRE: Yeah.
KEITH: Oh yeah.
JACK: Absolutely gigantic [KEITH: Huge.] hammer. [KEITH: Cartoon sized, almost.] If you had just showed me that still frame of the movie and said “what kind of a character do you think this man is?”, I would’ve been able to tell you every character beat from the [ALI and DRE laugh] interior decorator- like I have never seen look more at home with a prop than that character holding that huge mallet.
DRE: Yeah.
KEITH: I have a slight- I have a slight tangent here. [ALI: Sure.] Tangent? I don’t know. So when we were talking about the vacuum I was like, why didn’t they- why didn’t they try the Heimlich maneuver? And then I was like maybe it wasn’t invented yet.
JACK: Ohh.
ALI: Oh?
JACK: It wasn’t.
KEITH: And so it was, but here’s what I found on the Wikipedia, and I only had time to read it in bits, so I just fin- I just really processed what it said. [ALI starting to hyperventilate] It was invented in ‘82, and it has since been downgraded- from 1985 to 2005, abdominal thrusts were only recommended as the Heimlich maneuver, the only recommended treatment for choking in the published guidelines of the American Heart Association and the American Red Cross. In 2006, both organizations drastically changed course and downgraded the use of the technique. The 1982 study that persuaded the American Heart Association to stop recommending back blows for dealing with choking, was partially funded by Heimlich’s own foundation, according to Roger White MD of the Mayo Clinic and American Heart Association, quote, "There was never any science here. Heimlich overpowered science all along the way with his slick tactics and intimidation, [ALI wheezes and stifles laughing] and everyone, including the AHA, caved in.”, unquote. Wow! What!
JACK: Heimlich was a real [KEITH: Woah!] [DRE and ALI laughing] Heimlich was a real piece of shit. [DRE: I can’t-] If you have the opportunity to look into Heimlich’s whole deal, he was a real fucking- [ALI: Really?] He was a- yeah.
KEITH: Really.
JACK: So, yeah-
KEITH: So did you know- did you know what I just read, Jack?
JACK: Yeah yeah yeah! I- cause I think I did a similar thing, which was I sort of pictured the Heimlich manever as coming from 1850, and I was like, when did it come from? And it was like the 1980s, and then I aws like-
KEITH: I knew that, but I didn’t know anything past that.
JACK: No! So, Henry Heimlich is as far as I can tell, like a fucking charlatan at best, and like a colossally unethical malpractice lawsuit waiting to happen at worst? There is a line about him in his- [chuckles] there is a line about him in his Wikipedia page that I love, which is, it’s this. Heimlich and his wife had four children: Phil Heimlich, a former Cincinnati elected official and one-time conservative Christian radio talk-show host; investigative blogger Peter M. Heimlich, whose website describes what he alleges to be his father’s quote, "wide-ranging, unseen 50-year history of fraud.", and has called his father, quote, "a spectacular con man and serial liar" [KEITH: Wow.] and has claimed, quote, "the only thing my father ever invented was his own mythology." [DRE laughs]
KEITH: Holy shit.
ALI: Wow.
JACK: He’s a bad- [DRE: Oh!] he’s a bad dude.
DRE: His nephew is Potsie from Happy Days.
ALI: [laughs] Oh my-
JACK: Really?
KEITH: No way.
DRE: Yeah!
KEITH: How deep does this thing go! [laughs] [JACK laughs]
DRE: Oh he also said that you should give people malaria to treat HIV- yeah.
JACK: This was he- yeah, this was his real, yeah. And he did a lot of medical practice without consent, on people who were not fully informed as to what was happening. He is a- this guy was a bad dude. But I think we can all agree that the best method is two steps. Step 1, turn the old man upside down [ALI and KEITH chuckle].
KEITH: Step 2, do you need any special equipment for step 2?
JACK: Now I think we need a vacuum [wheezes] [ALI: Yeah] cleaner. [KEITH laughs]
ALI: Yup. [DRE chuckles]
KEITH: Jack de Quidt’s vacuum method [ALI squeals] has no science behind it.
JACK: Are there any scenes where- I feel like I think if there are scenes we haven’t touched on.
KEITH: There’s a ton, I have a few written here.
JACK: Toothache man.
ALI: Toothache man, yeah.
DRE: Yeah, toothache man.
JACK: A man with a very bad toothache.
KEITH: We have almost not talked at all about maybe the most perplexing thread in the whole movie, which is-
JACK: The sex couple?
KEITH: The sex couple- the gangster and his girlfriend.
JACK: Honey and Darling from Majora’s Mask? [ALI chuckles]
KEITH: And I have so many questions [DRE cackles] because I felt like I understood this movie- I really vibed with this movie, pretty much start to finish, including most of the scenes, not all. Some of- I guess maybe some of the scenes with this guy, who is very cool, three, maybe three of the scenes. And some of them were re- the ones I didn’t vibe with were really weird.
ALI: Yeah.
DRE: Uh huh.
KEITH: And- [ALI squeals]
DRE: How do you feel about eggs, Keith?
KEITH: I don’t feel that good about em! [ALI continues laughing] [DRE laughs] I paused the movie, [ALI wheezes] I paused the movie to bring Isaac down to show him that scene [DRE cackles] to be like, look at this. And like “what am I looking at?”
JACK: To say now, look, the person I love, this is egg hell.
ALI: I might be misremembering and exaggerating this, but I feel like that image of their faces might be the Criterion disk? [KEITH cackles] I think it- [laughs] it might be featured like, somewhere within the like, it comes with like a nice poster and on the other side of it there’s this essay, so there is either a screenshot of it there, or it’s literally on the disk. And yeah you know just you know, vibing with your partner, enjoying an egg.
JACK: Enjoying an egg, now. Let’s say that you have one egg. [wheezes]
ALI: Mhm.
KEITH: But you wanted it in two different mouths.
JACK: Do we need- I was going to say, do we need any [KEITH: Wow it really is!] more eggs? I’m on board with this scene- but I think I’m on board with this scene both being in the movie and being in the disk cover, because if you can make a film with a scene so intense [KEITH: Bizarre.] and perplexing? [KEITH: And-!] I feel you gotta just take that to the bank, as the woman who was with the old man does all the time.
KEITH: They did- [DRE chuckles] so this couple already had what I thought was going to be the worst and most perplexing thing that happens in the movie, which was when they have a [DRE: Oh. Oh.] live shrimp under a bowl, [ALI stfiles laughter] [JACK: Fight. Oh boy, there’s a content warning here as well right?] flopping around and tickling her- what’s that?
JACK: It’s not flopping- I under- I understood that to be that there were two things fighting each other under the bowl.
KEITH: Oh, I thought it was [DRE: That’s, yeah.] one shrimp flailing.
JACK: No, I think it was a shrimp and something that eats shrimp.
ALI: Oh.
JACK: That was my guess.
KEITH: Ohh, I didn’t- I didn’t pick up on that at all. I thought it was one giant shrimp. I could be wrong, but either way I think it is similarly jarring, and confusing?
JACK: It is a scene so monumentally bizarre. [ALI chuckles]
KEITH: In it’s- so well they start- so the scene starts, this is a sex scene, this is a sex-adjacent scene. [ALI laughs]
JACK: Begins in an incredible way as well. Like it’s the most Tampopo lead-in to this scene, which is just, a waiter, who- that the camera follows the waiter bringing a tray of food to a couple’s hotel room, and then instead of leaving with the waiter as our point of view character, we move into the hotel room, and… Keith?
KEITH: I guess I don’t know where to start with this! [ALI wheezes] So they start doing food play.
ALI: Right.
KEITH: And I have written here, here’s what I have- here’s what I wrote down for this scene. If I were to garnish a nipple with lemon, I would try my best not to squeeze seeds all over it. [ALI howls with laughter] [DRE chuckles]
ALI: A thing worth noting, yeah, I believe I noted that when I watched this too, yeah.
DRE: And salt.
JACK: Yeah. [ALI sighs] [KEITH laughs]
DRE: You gotta salt it first.
KEITH: But that is the sort of- this is the sort of thing, cause it- I didn’t have the temperature of the movie yet,
ALI: Yeah.
KEITH: Because the movie was not- it was so much more [JACK: In its early days.] about food than the sex. And that’s the part- it wanted, the seeds had to be there, because the scene was about seeds in a lemon more than it was about that this is about to- this is about to be, or at least a simulation of sex.
ALI: Yeah it’s- it’s such a weird thing. And like I really- I really love this movie for just being like, here’s these two weirdos, they’re made for each other. [KEITH: Yeah.] It’s working out.
KEITH: They totally are. Yeah.
JACK: One of them will die, and the other- also he can see through the fourth wall!
ALI: It’s such a weird thing because like, Keith you mentioned before that this isn’t really like a food porn movie. But like, I get it, yeah. Yeah.
KEITH: Except for when it’s food porn!
JACK: Except for when it’s porn!
ALI: Right, exactly, yeah yeah yeah! And like, I get that they want- like, there’s definitely like a place of this movie for them to like gesture towards the eroticism of like, eating and sharing food with somebody [JACK: Yeah.] as like a baseline, and [chuckles] it’s like they do it, the grossest way ever in every scene that they’re in is like, aspiring I guess- [laughs]
KEITH: It’s so-
JACK: Even bread, or- it’s like they read all the like, verbs of like, in film and literature, like what has been considered erotic about food, or about the act of eating, and it’s you know, the ways in which food can be shared, and the ways in which food has different textures. And then they read all these things, and just went, now, what if they pass an egg… [ALI laughs] what if they pass an egg between their mouths, and-
KEITH: So we have not been explicitly about it, we have only talked around it.
DRE: Yeah, they baby-bird an egg yolk back and forth.
KEITH: They baby-bird an egg yolk back and forth forever.
JACK: Until it- well no, not forever Keith.
DRE: Until it busts in her mouth.
KEITH: Until it busts- and then, I thought, until she shows back up, that she died. [ALI and DRE laughs] It looked like she died.
JACK: Oh, I have never- [laughs]
ALI: Yeah, she like falls limp as it happens.
KEITH: Yeah.
DRE: Oh, I totally read that as an orgasm [ALI chuckles].
KEITH: And so, and so-
JACK: It was the little death.
KEITH: It did, I mean- ex-! [incredulous] No! Oh, sorry, I totally missed the subtext of that, yeah. Exactly was the death of an orgasm. [ALI laughs] Of course it is! I- I, it was so- the death part was so convincing for me. Because then, the next scene that he’s in, there’s another girl. He finds- at least- an oyster farm- an oyster diver.
ALI: No, I believe that’s a flashback. I think that’s them.
KEITH: Well that- okay, so that’s, that’s what I wrote-
DRE: Ohhhh!
KEITH: So here’s just what I have in a row. Who is this nasty Yakuza with his dirty [ALI does a spit take] egg business? [JACK laughs] Was his girlfriend allergic to eggs? [ALI wheezes]
JACK: No, Keith!
KEITH: She died, right?
JACK: Keith!
KEITH: And then I wrote, nasty oyster scene, was the oyster scene a memory? I couldn’t tell that this was like him finding a new girlfriend, or if this was a flashback.
JACK: She wasn’t dead, Keith!
KEITH: Well I didn’t know that at the time, the death part was so convincing! [JACK chuckles] And then she didn’t show back up for a half hour. [JACK: Yeah I-] And that was a different actor that played the diver than the girlfriend, I’m pretty sure.
ALI: Yeah, I think it’s a flashback because she’s much younger, in a way that’s like a little bit as you’re watching- [makes uncomfortable sound]
JACK: Yeah. Made me feel a little uncomfortable.
ALI: Yeah.
KEITH: Yes. Yeah, it was-
DRE: Yeah, for sure.
KEITH: It was such- it was meant to be so extremely sexual, [ALI: Yes.] that this girl seemed so young was very off-putting.
ALI: Yeah, but it’s-
KEITH: But I- but then remembering the shrimp scene I was like, this movie is meant to be off-putting. And the egg.
ALI: Yeah, at least when they’re around, you’re supposed to feel a little bit uncomfortable. And yeah, I don’t know if that scene takes place right after he dies or right before he dies? Cause I feel like- cause he has a-
JACK: Wait, which scene?
ALI: The scene where he meets her. Because I fee-
DRE: That happens before he dies.
ALI: Oh, okay. So I remember him being like,
JACK: Oh so you mean in the chronology of the movie, not his life. I was so confused.
KEITH: Right, right, yes.
ALI: Oh yeah yeah yeah, sorry.
KEITH: Cause he calls- he references when he dies, he calls back to the beginning scene where he calls it his final movie when his about to die.
ALI: Ohhh right. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. But yeah, it’s- [giggles] it’s certainly a way for them to find each other, which is that she is diving for oysters. He’s like hey, can I buy one of those off of you. He’s having some difficulty opening it, so she’s like hey I’ll do that, I have this little knife here. And then, in doing that, cuts her hand?
JACK: No he-
KEITH: No, he cuts his lip.
ALI: Ohhh!
JACK: On the oyster.
KEITH: On the oyster, right. [ALI chuckles]
DRE: Yeah.
JACK: Which I thought was- that was a nice- that was a nice image, I think of someone going to eat an oyster and it-
KEITH: Eating it wrong, and-
JACK: And it like yeah, it like, the food in some way being like, jagged, or the like, [KEITH: Yeah.] or conceptually jagged, I thought that was cool. [KEITH: Eating in the-] Rest of the scene made me feel really weird. Although as that scene was going, if you did a little graph of how much Jack wants an oyster, [ALI chuckles]
DRE: Oh man.
JACK: During that scene?
KEITH: Oh it’s wildly flailing, yeah.
JACK: It flails all around, yeah.
ALI: Yeah…
KEITH: Yeah, there is an extremely unsubtle metaphor for virginity I think.
ALI: Uh huh.
DRE: Yeah, totally.
KEITH: And, yeah and-
JACK: So he cuts his lip on the oyster, and then she removes the oyster from the shell, oyster’s on the half shell, and it becomes oyster’s on the no shell.
KEITH: Oyster’s on the hand shell.
ALI: Oh, that’s right.
DRE: And then, yeah, oyster’s on the hand.
JACK: Cause she holds it in her hand and says, you can eat it out of my hand. And then he does. [ALI chuckles] And at that point my graph of how much Jack wants an oyster is very very low, [ALI: Uh huh.] [DRE: Right, nosedives.] whereas earlier in the scene, we’re going- we’re getting oysters. Me, that sounds lovely.
KEITH: What about when the blood first drips onto the oyster while it’s still on the shell?
JACK: Now it’s going back down again, you see? [DRE: Yeah, mhm.] But then you know, when we get some more bloodless shots of the oyster, it’s getting back up again, because I’m thinking about lovely times I’ve enjoyed with oysters.
KEITH: What a delicious little ocean sip an oyster is.
JACK: What a lovely ocean sip. Now have you ever wanted to taste weird salt? Have we got the rock for you! [ALI, KEITH, DRE laugh]
KEITH: Inside of this rock is a little sip of the ocean.
ALI: Yeah…
KEITH: Oh and then she starts licking the blood off of his face. They do not kiss at any point, but she does move in [ALI: Ohhh…] [JACK: Yeah… Oh she does!] to his face and lick repeatedly the blood off of his lip.
DRE: Yeah.
JACK: Boy this film is interested in food and how it relates to bodies!
ALI: Yeah.
KEITH: Yeah.
ALI: I mean, that’s a power play [laughs]
KEITH: I still don’t understand though, who that girl is. Is that meant to be the other actress but younger?
JACK: That’s the weird woman Keith, who doesn’t die!
ALI: I think it’s her.
KEITH: It’s a different actress!
JACK: Yes but she’s younger!
KEITH: But he’s younger too and he’s the same.
ALI: That’s where the age gap gets weird [laughs]. I think cause- that’s weird, yeah.
DRE: Yeah.
JACK: Or alternatively, it’s not a flashback, and he’s-
ALI: He’s recruited a new food weirdo.
DRE: Aw.
JACK: Well- a [wheezing] new-
DRE: And that’s why he gets shot.
JACK: After his first food weirdo dies! He gets shot by a completely unseen assailant, I love that.
KEITH: Totally offscreen.
JACK: At the end as the- as the builders are putting the thing up, they hear gunshots outside and we go out to see that the food sex weirdo [KEITH: Yeah.] [DRE laughs] has been shot.
KEITH: He felt to me-
DRE: Like seven times!
KEITH: He felt to me like he was ripped out of Harold Pinter or something, and put into this movie, up to and including being murdered at the end by a totally unseen [ALI and JACK chuckle] assailant. And for almost if not totally unclear reasons.
JACK: There is a wonderful moment in his death scene where he- he’s fleeing backwards, having been shot like six times, and he falls into a- it’s like a series of bike racks? It’s like a gate of some kind-
KEITH: It was part of a playground?
JACK: He’s going into a playground, but it’s these like series of metal bars that come out of the ground, and they are so visually confusing [ALI chuckles] for someone who has been shot six times, that he falls down and gets up but sort of tries to climb over one, and then falls down again. It was such a good like- if the script just says like he is shot six times, walks into a playground and dies, whoever staged that scene there did a really good thing of like, let’s make this scene feel like it has a rhythm, or has a really interesting pace to it. Because then he dies in the-
KEITH: It was also so- it was so over the top, him slipping around, it was at the same time like, confusing, what’s happening in the scene? It was sad, I kind of liked this character, I think he’s interesting on screen-
JACK: Also this seems like a bad way to go.
KEITH: It seems like- yeah, it seems painful, and it’s like jarring, and then also it’s literally funny.
ALI: Yeah.
JACK: Well, and the funniest thing here before we begin the upsetting pig- yam pig monologue, is that he- so he dies what I can only describe as a very long, narrow playground. [ALI and KEITH laugh] That features one green slide, and three remarkable [ALI begins squealing] [KEITH chuckles] sort of stone animals, I-
KEITH: They were all pigs, right?
DRE: Yeah they were all pigs.
JACK: I thought at least one of them were a hippo until we got a close-up, and it’s a pig.
DRE: Yeah.
JACK: And these like, red- low redstone pigs, so round. Roundest pig of the year winner 1985.
KEITH: This is not a wild boar rooting for yams. This is a fat pig.
JACK: Yes. And they are the exact same colour as the blood [KEITH: Oh my god. It was so good.] on his shirt. You just have this wonderful- this beautiful surreal image of this man in a white suit that is now covered in blood, lying on the floor next to three extremely round, small pigs. [ALI laughing] The exact same colour as his blood! And I’m just like, filmmaking rules! [KEITH laughs]
KEITH: Preceded by the story about pigs.
ALI: Yeah.
DRE: Yeah.
JACK: The yam, yam-snufflers, yeah.
DRE: Yeah. Yam sausages.
JACK: Yeah.
ALI: Yeah, which I guess we haven’t made clear, which is he’s saying like, at a certain point of the year, hunters go out to this like specific wood.
JACK: This is Ali’s performance of the monologue by the way. [ALI and KEITH laugh]
ALI: To-
KEITH: Ahh the rain in his eyes, [ALI: It’s so good I can’t it’s sooo good.] it’s pooling in spots on his face.
ALI: But yeah, he says that you know, hunters specifically go out there to hunt these pigs during sweet potato season, so that when you kill them and they’ve eaten all of the potatoes, you immediately take their intestines out, and then-
JACK: -cut open their bellies.
ALI: With the yams inside, and it’s like one of the best meals. In his dying moment he’s saying how he wished he could’ve had that meal. [gasps] Or I think that he’s saying it and like- well I guess he’s like, I wish that we had done that and she at this point is like, oh we’ll [JACK: The experience we’d shared.] definitely do that. We’re gonna go. We’re gonna survive. And of course he does not. But yeah, what a poignant moment between those two.
JACK: Oh, my dying husband! My dying husband, we will make the yam pigs sexual in some way! [ALI chuckles] I do not know how yet, we have time, my love! But then he dies. [DRE chuckles]
ALI: Yes.
JACK: There’s another fantastic pig moment in the movie. Which is when the- what’s his name? The broth maker?
KEITH: The expert ramen maker.
JACK: The expert ramen maker is like, I have a special ingredient for the- for the broth-
DRE: Oh god, yeah!
JACK: And he produces a single, perfect [ALI chuckles] pig’s head, which he holds up, [KEITH: Yeah.] and Tampopo just-
DRE: Still has like furriness on it and everything.
JACK: And Tampopo just faints dead away. And everybody-
KEITH: Which is surprising because she spends her day handling like, duck and chicken parts-
JACK: Well she has a great line which explains why she fainted- so like, [KEITH: Yeah.] she goes down, everybody leaps into action. First Goro just- [wheezes] Gun just waves his hand above her head, to try and like you know, cool her down. Goro takes a big sip of water and just spits it on her. And then she comes to and she says “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, it was just the way it looked at me,” [ALI giggles] which I thought was just like, [wheezes] this poor woman! This poor pig. This is a great scene. The pig is also on the poster.
So on this beautiful Criterion poster, we have, some people eating ramen, we have pig’s head, we have the weird sex couple lady’s legs, we have the old sensei- oh! We have the man with the- what is that flicked onto his face?
KEITH: Wait, what are you- where are you seeing all this stuff?
KEITH: Oh lemme link this to you. I love this poster.
DRE: I forget what is flicked onto his face, but it’s like right before they fought for the first time, [JACK: Yeah.] right? Like Goro picks something out of ramen and like flicks it at that guy’s face.
ALI: Oh yeah, it’s um like a flat piece of egg? I think it’s called a naruto? Which is funny, yeah.
KEITH: Oh, with the spiral on it?
DRE: Oh, naruto!
KEITH: Yeah.
ALI: Yeah. God [chuckling], it’s a great illustration of that on his face.
KEITH: Yeah.
DRE: Mhm.
JACK: I love this poster so much, there is also the natural foods baby eating an ice cream the size of him! [ALI laughs] [KEITH laughs]
ALI: [sighs] I am so happy for that kid.
KEITH: [laughing] The ice cream’s bigger than his head!
ALI: He’s like holding it, yeah.
JACK: Which is not in the movie.
ALI: It is spiritually. When you see that kid eating that food it’s- [laughs] so good.
KEITH: Yeah.
DRE: Yeah.
KEITH: Do we have-
DRE: No idea what to do with it, just straight-faced first in there.
KEITH: Do we have anything left besides like, the very end of this?
JACK: Let me- let me look at-
KEITH: We didn’t really talk about the con man con man, but there’s not a ton, it’s just one of the- it’s just like a very good one that is also sort of not remarkable?
ALI: Yeah, it’s like one of my favourite scenes in that movie, but it’s you know, it just happens, it’s so funny [laughing]
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: The twist- so this is a con man who the viewer learns is a con man very quickly, trying to scam an old university professor out of a lot of yen. The con man goes to answer a phone call, at which point a twist is revealed [ALI giggles] so instantaneously and so transparently, which is that the university professor is a con man who promptly steals the other man’s wallet. And-
KEITH: Who then himself promptly is arrested. [ALI laughs] [laughs]
JACK: Is arrested!
DRE: Mhm.
JACK: Instantly arrested!
KEITH: And the guy goes, playing- he’s like “playing the university professor again? You gotta change things up,” while the cuffs go on. Like, you see him with the like, with the wallet, about to take it from the guy, he’s already checked the money, and like you see his hand reaching to put it in his own pocket, and then boom, cuffs on him from nowhere. [ALI chuckles]
JACK: Ohhh, it’s great.
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: Yeah, I got- I guess I have a question which is, why, why does Goro have this expertise?
KEITH: He’s a truck driver, he goes- he eats ramen all the time, stopping- stopping for ramen.
JACK: Is it that it? Is it that he’s just like, he’s just- eats a lot of ramen?
KEITH: Well it’s also that- [DRE: Yeah.] it’s also just a truck driver thing, they are experts at whatever the movie is about. [ALI and JACK chuckles] That’s all that has to be. Jack, are you familiar with this trope as a-?
JACK: Oh yeah, no. [KEITH: Okay, I just wanted to-] I just didn’t know if, [KEITH: It’s possible.] it gets-
KEITH: I mean everyone knows Big Trouble Little China is the number one [ALI: Ohhh, yeah.], the most famous ones of these kinds of movies? [DRE: Ohhh, yeah.] Like, this is just [JACK: Oh man, I should rewatch that.] the truck driver- oh, it’s incredible, but. The- you know, a truck driver who just is perfect at what the movie is about. And you know, the- Big Trouble is a great movie in the way that it complicates this trope by making him actually kind of a dumbass, but.
JACK: There’s a sweet scene where Tampopo and Goro go out for- oh what are they eat- they’re not eating ramen, I-
KEITH: I was like Korean barbeque.
DRE: Ohhh. Yeah.
JACK: Oh yeah, they’re eating barbeque!
ALI: Ohh yeah!
KEITH: Delicious.
DRE: Mmm, they’re having like shortribs.
JACK: Now the graph in that scene of how much does Jack wants to eat Korean BBQ, very stable.
ALI: Yeah.
DRE: Oh yeah, uh huh.
KEITH: Skyrocket, and stayed there.
ALI: Ohh.
KEITH: I very luckily still had my ramen that I was eating at this point.
ALI: Oh okay, yeah. That is definitely one of the, one of my favourite scenes in the movie. I think the most recent time that I watched I teared up a little bit, cause it’s you know, they’re on this first date, she’s had her makeover, and like after he sees her for the first time is just, stunned by her, her beauty-
JACK: He says you look like someone I don’t know how to talk to!
ALI: [laughing] Yes!
DRE: Yeah. Yeah.
JACK: Or you look like- I find it difficult to talk to you, it’s such a good line.
ALI: It’s so good. And then when they’re on this date, they’re you know sort of asking each other about their families, and Goro has this great story of like, you know, I- I had a bad childhood growing up, so when I find a wife, I wanted to make sure that we would have a happy home, and I created it. And then I wasn’t able to live in a happy home? Which is just-
JACK: He says a warm home.
DRE: Yeah.
JACK: I wanted to make my home as warm as possible, which is just like, god. And he’s looking out of the window as he’s doing this, out into this rainy like scene. We can’t really see his face. It’s a fantastic scene.
ALI: Yeah.
DRE: Mhm.
KEITH: It is the- it’s the first time in the movie where he didn’t seem like he knew what was going on, [ALI chuckles] and like he had the answer for something.
DRE: Yeah.
ALI: Yeah. A very great, vulnerable Goro moment. God. They’re great.
JACK: Tabo beats up his three bullies.
KEITH: Pisken has a great vulnerable moment towards the end, maybe I should wait to bring it up, but I just wanted to not forget so I’m saying it out loud.
ALI: [chuckles] I mean we’re nearing probably the end of this [JACK: Yeah.] recording too, so we can go, yeah.
KEITH: Okay. Well they finish- they finish fixing up the shop, they change the name to Tampopo Ramen. They- Pisken does the home makeover, which honestly, I think maybe went a little bit too far in the [ALI giggles] [DRE: Yeah.] clean direction? It’s a different time. It was the eighties, they had a different you know, it’s also [JACK: So she was so fucking thrilled.] not where- I don’t live in Japan, but- yeah, they loved it. They seemed to think it was excellent. But there was something very nice about the browns and the, the like sort of unvarnished wood of the original shop.
ALI: In an-
KEITH: It’s very sterile.
ALI: Yeah, it ends up getting replaced and it’s this like, really nice white [JACK: Gleaming.] tile.
KEITH: Looks out of place when they show it in the street. [ALI chuckles] Like the street view.
ALI: Yeah.
KEITH: But that’s just editorialization.
ALI: Right.
KEITH: But. Is there anything about this scene to-?
DRE: I like when they- I guess this is before it opens, but like, when they try her ramen after she’s perfected it the first time? [KEITH: Right.] And the light just floods inside? [ALI chuckles]
KEITH: Right, because they’ve been testing her. They’ve been testing her to like, if we finish every drop, it means that the ramen is- is excellent. Because you would never, [JACK: Sort of subjective but that’s fine.] if you loved the ramen, then you would not leave broth in the bowl. And it was the first time that they did finish it all. Perfect that it coincided with them also finishing the restaurant.
ALI: Right.
KEITH: And it was kinda sad watching them- I think it was, the driver was like, we’ll just slowly filter out as customers show in.
ALI: Aw yeah.
JACK: That was great, yet.
KEITH: And they all- they just sort of do. They just go like, [JACK: Slowly replaced.] I guess we’re done. We’ve dedicated who knows, weeks or months, to- for no, for basically no reason, helping you become the best ramen in town? [ALI and KEITH chuckle] And we’re done, so I guess we’ll slowly, one at a time, leave.
DRE: Yeah but that’s what happens at the end of a Western movie. [ALI: Yeah.] The posse just kind of goes their separate ways.
ALI: I think how people talk about that scene is like, as they’re slowly slinking out, people keep slinking in, so it’s like this full ramen shop that’s like, [JACK and KEITH: Yeah.] people standing against the wall to try to get a seat, and it’s like, well, I’ve done my part.
KEITH: There’s also a slight tragedy here, to me at least. Which is you know, you have Tampopo who is like, in this ramen shop, it’s maybe sustaining itself but she’s not satisfied with how her ramen is, and she wants to improve. And through the course of this movie, she has like guaranteed herself a new life of extremely hard work. [ALI and JACK chuckle] By becoming a popular ramen shop that has lines out the door, which is explicitly what they want. A good ramen shop always has a line. Which means that she is now busy forever. Which I think is kinda deeply sad. As- [chuckles]
ALI: She feels satisfied by it. And it’s like, [KEITH: She does, big smile.] now like an inspiration for her son, which is also really good, and I think, I don’t know if she-
KEITH: Who beats up his bullies and [ALI laughs] becomes their friends?
ALI: [laughing] Yes!
DRE: Oh yeah. I don’t know if he becomes their friend, but he goes like full [JACK: He beats-] [ALI: Yeah.] WWE on those kids, like beats-
JACK: I was gonna say, I love this fight.
KEITH: At the very end, they show up [JACK: Uh huh!] and like invite him out to play.
ALI: Yeah.
DRE: Ohhhh, okay, yeah.
JACK: He’s just like, I’m going out to play with them!
ALI: Yeah, once he wins a fight they’re all cool, which is you know, how that works I guess.
KEITH: But he- yeah, he wrecks them. And in the-
JACK: As opposed- [DRE: Hell yeah.] as opposed to the Goro and Pisken fight, which is just like, people smacking each other in the faces until they bleed, this fight between the three child- as far as I can tell, mostly involves them hitting each other over the head with their book bags. [ALI laughs]
DRE: Yeah. [laughs]
JACK: Yeah.
KEITH: Yeah. He elbows one of them in the neck.
JACK: Oh my god.
KEITH: He does, he elbows one of them in the neck and he crumples to the ground, yeah. In the sort of way where these are child actors and they’re not actually doing a very good job play fighting, but.
DRE: Sure. [JACK chuckles]
KEITH: Oh I should- I haven’t said- I’m sorry to go this far back, but that fight, I didn’t mention it, but the fight between Pisken and Goro under the bridge where they’re silhouetted, we didn’t really talk about the actual fight except that it was totally you know, no-holds-barred, they’re both collapsing by the end of it. But like watching them in the sort of side view while they’re under the bridge and silhouetted, we get this sort of like, 2D view of the fight? And we watch them have two totally different fighting styles and also the exact fighting styles that they would have, where Pisken like doing these lunges and huge blows, and Goro’s like extremely fast and like dodging things but still just like getting hit and kind of tackled. [ALI chuckles] Very good, really well done.
DRE: They say he was a boxer.
KEITH: Yeah, yeah, he said he was a boxer.
DRE: Says he’s like at one point a boxer.
JACK: Oh, there was a bit where I thought the- [wheezes] there was a bit where I thought the way it was gonna go in a completely different direction, which was when Goro says you know, I used to be a fighter back in the gym, I was a bit of a champion. And he looks at Pisken and goes, you’re pretty good for someone who is self taught. And I thought he was gonna say, I could teach you. [ALI laughs] And I thought that like, oh, okay, now the movie is gonna be about- like, the joke here is that Goro keeps picking up proteges for like [KEITH and DRE laugh] ramen, fighting and everything?
DRE: [laughing] Ohhh… that would’ve been pretty incredible.
KEITH: Yeah. But, but then- so I guess jumping back to the, that like sort of final scene, or second final scene, and then it- Goro’s the last one to leave the shop as customers are coming in. He sort of like waits to catch a glance, and then walks out and then gets in his truck and like, [ALI: Oh yeah!] Pisken like runs up to him to say goodbye, grabs his arm, [JACK: Ohhh!] and like, I can’t even remember if he says anything. He doesn’t really- if he said something.
JACK: I think he says like, we did it.
KEITH: Yeah, he says- yeah, [DRE: Yeah.] he says we did it, is like yeah, we did it. And he drives off, and Pisken runs after the truck.
ALI: It’s so good!
KEITH: Like pathetically, saying nothing, no words, trying to keep his hat on.
JACK: Yeah, no shouting. His hat falls off!
KEITH: Until he’s running so fast that it’s not worth it to try and keep his hat on and he just lets it fall to the ground, and he just stands in the middle of the road watching Goro leave. And it’s like, in a way it was funny cause I was like, what was the magic between these two? [ALI laughs] Like, why is- [laughs]
JACK: They’re like best buds.
KEITH: Yeah, but it’s-
DRE: Yeah and they fought, now they’re best buds.
KEITH: But it’s also the like, a great illustration of the pow- like, the way this movie sees Goro as like, so larger than life. Even though what he mostly does is just sort of teach people about ramen. [ALI chuckles]
ALI: Or like, connect them with other people, right?
KEITH: Right, yeah. Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
DRE: Yeah.
JACK: And like why food is important to them. Like a tiny- again, like a tiny jumping back thing that I want to do is in the scene in the pig yam, pig death scene, there is this like- the music in the movie is so good, and so over-the-top so often, but this is like real over-the-top death score playing as this guy- like orchestral, sad death score? And then- oh! My dog’s arrived- you- no.
KEITH: Hello!
JACK: Who is- hello! [ALI giggling] [soft dog noises] [DRE chuckles] Someone just started licking my elbow.
ALI: Aww. [DRE laughs]
JACK: So we just have like, we have this like ridiculous orchestral music, and then as soon as the scene is finished, the music just ends midway through a measure, [KEITH: Yeah, that’s not the first time either.] it’s so funny every single time they do it, where it’s literally as though the camera is going like “well, scene’s done, fuck it, let-” you know.
DRE: Yeah.
KEITH: It totally felt that way, it totally felt like the idea of lingering on a scene to let the song naturally end was like, a decadence too far for even the movie about food. [ALI chuckles] [chuckles]
JACK: Yep! Nope, bang, let’s go! [laughs] I wanna see an old woman try to touch a peach, let’s go!
ALI: God.
KEITH: And then we get- I think the next shot is the final shot of the movie. Last shot, the first food.
DRE: Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah, you mean the credits?
KEITH: Five minutes of everyone’s first food.
JACK: Yeah. Yeah we have a full unbroken shot of somebody breastfeeding a baby. [ALI and KEITH laugh]
ALI: Oh my god, I forgot! Did I-? I don’t know if I included that in the content warnings when I was like, here’s the things that you can watch for the assignments, cause that-
KEITH: Again, did not see any of these content warnings so I don’t know.
JACK: I don’t think you did- again, like, firmly on team Subtlety Is For Losers, I don’t think that what the film was saying in that moment was particularly like, I don’t know, like revealing? But I do think that just as like-
KEITH: It was kind of a joke, I thought! I didn’t- I think it was like, it was meant to be a little funny.
JACK: It was like, we’re getting all kinds of food in the movie!
ALI: Yeah!
KEITH: Yeah, yeah. It was sort of like half a joke, and half like “don’t we all agree, everyone’s journey starts here.” [ALI chuckles] The first food we love.
ALI: Yeah, it’s definitely one of those points in the movie where it’s like, okay you’re laying it on a little thick here, but I love this movie, so I’ll take it [laughs].
JACK: Yeah! Absolutely, and you know, like we- I felt at least that so much goodwill had been built up, that it wasn’t even like they were spending it on this like gratuitous, like lengthy scene, I was just kind of like, yes, absolutely this is Tampopo! [ALI laughs]
KEITH: Yeah. [DRE chuckles] It was so in character, it did not seem out of character at all.
ALI: Yeah, god. Now that we’ve sort of reached the end of this, before we wrap I just wanna like, sort of talk about the umbrella here and sort of relate it back to Bluff City and like we’re going to now [laughs] I guess, let this sort of either like, in the past and how we’ve played, and in the future sort of inform how we will play? I think like the biggest things for this movie for me besides like, letting characters just be around and be bizarre, is like, how much it like includes the texture of the city by letting people walk in and out of the movie? [chuckles] Like we said before, most of the vignettes that we see are completely isolated, and also like, three to four minutes long. But like, definitely give you this full vision of like what this person’s life is like.
KEITH: Yeah. It’s like a third of the movie.
DRE: And they- they like all weave together too. Like, they like, it’s like, you go from like one scene with like the main characters, and then like, the people who are in the next vignette like walk by, [ALI chuckles] and then the camera is just like “oh, what are they doing? I’m gonna follow them for five minutes.”
KEITH: Yeah it’s basically, it’s basically the original Mr. Show.
ALI: Yeah?
KEITH: No? Does not land?
ALI: [laughs] I’m sorry!
KEITH: Mr. Show is a sketch from the nineties that famously sort of tied the end of every sketch to the beginning of the next sketch [ALI: Ohhh.] in the way [DRE: Mmm.] that Tampopo does.
ALI: Yeah, it has a lot of good- following the waiter is a trick that they really use a lot, [DRE: Yeah.] and it’s always well-executed.
JACK: The- the first transition is so beautiful, and it is something that like, you know when we talk about the camera in the show as well, I think that like, especially in Bluff City we definitely do and try and move between scenes consciously? Or in ways that are authored whether or not we are talking about a specific hard cut to something, or talking about the audio from one scene overlapping onto another scene or something.
But there’s a transition- it might be the first one, where from Tampopo and Goro, who are training, Goro’s riding a bicycle, and Tampopo’s running circles around his parked bicycle, as she like cools down from a run. And in the background we see the executives from the next vignette coming down the stairs outside. [KEITH: Yes.] And they walk close enough to Tampopo that her circuits around Goro take her into [ALI giggles] that group of people, and like she doesn’t apologize, but it’s like this real like “ooh sorry I’m in your way, sorry I’m in your way,” and then she runs back around and somehow entangles herself with the group again? And then as the group walks off, the camera just lifts itself off Goro and Tampopo and follows them.
And just like, you know the way you were talking about people entangling themselves, that happening very literally in that moment, [DRE: Mhm.] like there is people physically being brought into proximity, and yet having absolutely nothing to do with each other felt really, really good. And like definitely something that I’ll be thinking about.
KEITH: And it was a great bit of like, like you can see the way that it was framed, it was so typical to watch that scene and not think, now what is it with these executives? [ALI laughs]
JACK: Who are these executives?
KEITH: Why is the camera so like, interested in showing these random people to me? And the reason- cause I was like, I can kind of tell that these are not about to become important characters. But still, the camera is watching them as though they are, and then like, they were in the next scene for about three minutes, and then they never were again. Just that sort of like expectation building was really interesting.
JACK: Another Bluff City thing that like just stood out for me so immediately when we saw it was during the zombie cook scene. Where once she has prepared the meal and she sits down at the table, we just get this magical shot a night train moving through the city?
DRE: Mhm.
JACK: And it’s a shot that’s- and it’s like a long shot, it’s like on screen for twenty or thirty seconds. And it’s night time, and it’s lit in such a way that all you can see are the windows of this train as it moves by. And people like lounging in seats, or talking to one of the attendants, or getting up and moving between the carriages. And it was like, it was such a deliberate moment of texture for this place, and also to you know, to keep the focus on the zombie cook and her family, but also bring it out where it’s just like, everybody is moving through this city, there are people going home to eat, there are people going home to their families, there are people who are you know, heading back from work. And then to have that be in the middle of a scene, rather than- to have that be in the middle of a scene and to lend context to the scene around it, rather than like falling as a transition from one vignette to another, felt really good where it’s like, what seemingly unrelated detail in this world can we bring out in this moment to speak to the rest of what’s happening? It’s a good movie, I’m really glad that we watched it.
ALI: Yeah, thank you so much for watching it! [chuckles]
KEITH: Yeah, I loved it.
JACK: It was great. I’m looking forward to the next time we do one of these.
KEITH: It’s made me want to lean into those, those moments where the like, the stuff that we do, especially in Bluff where it seems especially suited to it, where- when we explode out of the linear narrative to talk about other stuff that’s going on. It’s made me want to dive deeper into those moments, because they’re so much fun. [ALI chuckles] Like,
JACK: I also wanna do more stories about food! That’s the other thing.
ALI: Yeah!
DRE: Yeah, absolutely.
ALI: Yeah. [sighs] Dre, any final thoughts before we wrap?
DRE: Just that I’m really sad [ALI laughs] there is not any ramen places open on Sunday. [JACK chuckles]
KEITH: Damn. Yeah I’ve got like one-
JACK: How do you like your ramen?
KEITH: You what?
JACK: How do you like your ramen?
DRE: The only thing that I’m like- I wouldn’t even say particular about, but I like- I definitely like the noodles to be more chewy and less soft, like kind of- not underdone, but like, I definitely like a thick, chewy noodle.
ALI: Mmm.
KEITH: You don’t like it al-dente, but you like it al-dentee [ALI laughs] [JACK chuckles]
DRE: Yeah!
JACK: You gotta get that lye water.
ALI: Oh yeah.
KEITH: I like a miso pork with an extra egg.
ALI: Yeah.
DRE: Oooh, yeah, ramen eggs are great.
JACK: Extra egg is what I was gonna say, yeah.
KEITH: I get an- I always get an extra egg. There’s a place near me that does pretty good ramen, and they use- when I moved, they stopped delivering to me? And at some point they expanded their like delivery radius or something, or opened another location, because all of a sudden it started showing up again.
ALI: Oooh!
KEITH: And I was like ooh, excellent. I might have- I might- I literally might get a second like- I had instant ramen that I gussied up a little bit, but I might get restaurant ramen later, because I’m in the mood.
ALI: Yeah. I uh, I usually go for a shoyu ramen, which is a specific type of broth, I’m not sure what sets it apart, but it’s slightly saltier?
JACK: Mmm!
ALI: But the ramen that I think of the most, is there is this Japanese restaurant that’s like a hole in a wall in Floral Park, New York, it’s called Torigo, so if you’re ever in the area you should go there. It is like legitimately one of the best Japanese restaurants I’ve ever been to [chuckles]. And I’m so lucky that I’ve been able to go there. And they have like a spicy ramen that’s like, just exquisite. [DRE: Oooh.] And it’s so good. And I always think of, especially when I’ve lived on Long Island, I would like, as soon as it would get like tipping towards fall and the winter, the only thing that I can think about was going to visit my friend in that area and getting a spicy ramen to like, enrich my spirit [laughing] through the rest of winter? So yeah, that’s my ramen preference.
KEITH: Do-
JACK: Food is good.
ALI: Yeah.
DRE: Yeah.
KEITH: Do we- okay, so I know, you know, a lot of people don’t live in a place where they can get restaurant ramen and even people who do, I think- I think everyone has an instant ramen preference, does anybody have a good instant ramen to shout out? [ALI chuckles]
DRE: Hold on, I’m gonna go get it from the kitchen, hold on.
[cabinet creaks]
JACK: When I-
KEITH: I heard the cabinet.
JACK: I- when I lived in London, I liked- I had instant ramen on the go all the time. [ALI chuckles] Truly on the go, but not here in the Southwest where I am.
ALI: Yeah, I- when I- [JACK: Instant ramen is so good.] I haven’t had instant ramen for a bit, and when I did it would just be Top Ramen, and I would make it in this really weird way which is like, I would put it in the microwave and then, microwave it for like a really long time, I don’t know why. And then I would pour out all of the broth, and just [laughs] eat it like- just like a nice flavoured wet spaghetti? [KEITH laughs]
JACK: Oh!
ALI: And it was-
DRE: Mmkay, alright!
JACK: So I don’t support it, [ALI laughs] but I do- [chuckles]
DRE: I understand, I think.
JACK: Yeah, I love and understand you, and I would try-
ALI: Sure. [laughs]
JACK: The broth is so good though!
DRE: Yeah.
ALI: Yeah.
DRE: Yeah. This container I got, I bought it from Costco, the brand is called Nongshim? And it’s a tonkatsu ramen, and it has an extra spicy sauce packet included [JACK: Ohh!] that is very good.
KEITH: It has an extra what?
DRE: It has like- so it’s got the flavouring packet, but then it also has an extra packet that’s just like a spicy [KEITH: Oh yeah.] like oil sauce that you can mix in.
KEITH: Oh yeah, I would say that all best ramens have two or even three packets in there.
DRE: Yeah.
KEITH: I like- Nissin ramen has two different tonkatsu porks. They have one that is better and more expensive called the umami tonkatsu, and that is the best- I think it is head and shoulders above any instant ramen that I’ve ever had in my entire life. They sell it- they sell it for a dollar at the little grocery store across the street from my house?
JACK: Incredible.
ALI: Wow.
KEITH: But if you go online, it is like 2.50 a pack. [ALI laughs] To like get it delivered. And so it feels like a little treasure if I can get this ramen for a dollar a thing. It’s the best, yeah. The regular tonkatsu’s fine, but the tonkatsu umami is like, maybe three times as good.
ALI: The umami makes the difference.
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: Umami does make a difference.
KEITH: It does.
DRE: Mhm.
KEITH: It says it right on the pack, umami makes the difference.
JACK: Umami makes the difference, yeah.
ALI: Yeah.
KEITH: Great movie!
ALI: Wonderful movie, yeah.
DRE: Yeah, wonderful movie.
KEITH: Yeah, I really enjoyed it, I’m glad- I’m glad I finally watched it, I’m upset I waited [ALI chuckles] like nineteen years [JACK: We got there.] after seeing it.
ALI: Yeah.
JACK: We got there! That’s the important-
ALI: And this is a great, you know way to do it, because now we all get to talk about it and be inspired by it after the fact.
KEITH: Yeah! I like doing these podcasts about movies because it lets me watch movies which is one of my favourite sort of thing to watch, but that I often don't make time for, but then also, in re-talking about the things that I thought were funny, it becomes even funnier. [ALI laughs]
JACK: Yes, yes, I agree!
KEITH: I definitely laughed more talking about all of the things that I thought were extremely funny than I did watching them, being in my head saying, this thing is extremely funny.
JACK: Yeah.
ALI: Yeah, but I think that’s gonna be- that’s gonna do it for us today. Tampopo is a wonderful movie, and if you’re listening to this you should seek it out. I recommend it very highly. It is streaming on the Criterion channel, and they offer a 15 day free trial? So if you just wanna like give them your email and then never give them a dollar to watch it, you can do that. [DRE chuckles] I- they also have a beautiful Blu-Ray set for- [chuckles] I, you know, maybe you’ll- yeah.
JACK: [chuckles] Great art.
ALI: Yeah yeah yeah. Great poster. I don’t know if you want to blind buy a Blu-Ray but, you know, Criterion might have some sales going on right now. But yeah, yeah yeah yeah. I hope people watching this do end up watching it because- people listening to this end up watching it because it is a very special film I think [laughs].
KEITH: Yeah. The director who’s name I’m blanking on at the time- Juzo Itami? [ALI: Yeah.] Is that what it is? I think that’s it. He- he was maybe murdered!
ALI: Oh!
DRE: Woah.
KEITH: He- so he continued to make movies for another few years, and made an anti-yakuza satire movie in 1992. [DRE: Oh.] They attacked him on a subway, and then two years later he mysteriously committed suicide and it was- it was told- an American VICE reporter was told by some Yakuza people that it was them, they basically forced him to jump off of a building.
JACK: Jesus Christ.
KEITH: At gunpoint, yeah. Yeah.
ALI: Wow. Well on that note- [laughs]
KEITH: I thought it would be difficult to not- I mean, I had to talk, I had to mention it.
ALI: Sure.
KEITH: It’s such a huge thing.
ALI: Yeah. Yeah the yakuza is not all,
KEITH: It’s not all fun and games.
ALI: It’s not all fun and games. Yeah, you know.
DRE: It’s not all side quests, you know?
ALI: Kiryuu’s an outlier, so, yeah.
KEITH: Yeah.
ALI: Don’t do organized crime. That’s my lesson for everybody tonight [chuckling] [DRE chuckles].
KEITH: Don’t be in Japan in 1992 and make a movie criticizing [ALI: Sure.] a crime family that is essentially legally allowed to [ALI chuckles] exist.
ALI: And with those life lessons behind us, thank you everybody for joining us! [DRE chuckles]
JACK: Thank you.
ALI: My name is Alicia Acampora, you can find me over at @ali_west on Twitter. You can find my dear friend Keith J Carberry, [laughs]
KEITH: You can, you can find- don’t find me, but you can find my YouTube channel at youtube.com/RunButton [laughing] and since this is going out to patrons, it means you’re already a patron at friendsatthetable.cash, so you can also go to contentburger.biz and sign up for the Run Button Patreon. Run Button, it’s just the best- it’s just the best Let’s Play channel [ALI: Yeah.] in the whole world.
ALI: Number one.
JACK: It’s true.
DRE: Co-signed.
KEITH: So you should watch it and subscribe to it on Patreon.
ALI: And Jack?
JACK: Hi, you can find me on Twitter at @notquitereal and buy any of the music featured on the show at notquitereal.bandcamp.com
ALI: And finally, Dre.
DRE: Hey, you can find me on Twitter at @Swandre3000.
ALI: Perfect! Well thanks for joining us, thanks from the bottom of my heart, for supporting us, and also being so patient while you support us. The- when you’re listening to this, there is gonna be such a steady stream of Pusher posts, these movie things are probably gonna be weekly, and then all of the aforementioned PARTIZAN- basically like an exclusive Year of Ours situation is gonna come after that, so thank you and enjoy. After this, I believe we’ll either be- we’re gonna be talking about Fargo, and then there will also be an episode talking about a- one episode from Better Call Saul. So look forward to that, and have a good night. Bye!
JACK: Bye! [ALI chuckles]
KEITH: Alright.